--- title: "Markdown table without pipes: pandoc simple tables" slug: markdown-table-without-pipes excerpt: "Pandoc's table output for a markdown table without pipes, from a file of space-split rows, is quoted under A simple table under the markdown reader." quickAnswer: "Under Pipeless tables and the CommonMark spec, two searches of the spec text appear beside one control search. The test inputs are described in The five input files. Pandoc's HTML for st.md shows up in A simple table under the markdown reader. A caption run is set out in Add a caption line. Three header layouts and the text-align values pandoc wrote for them appear in Column alignment from the dashes. A run without the extension, plus its byte dump, sits in Turning off simple_tables. Two commonmark settings are compared in What the commonmark readers wrote. A run with a deeper indent is quoted in A table pushed four spaces in. Steps using cat, pandoc, grep and od make up Check a pipeless table with grep." keyTakeaways: - "Pandoc's table, thead and tbody lines for st.md are quoted in A simple table under the markdown reader." - "Headers placed three ways against their dashes, with the alignment pandoc gave, are shown in Column alignment from the dashes." - "A run-together paragraph and the code points in it are covered in Turning off simple_tables." - "Spec lines behind the hr in the commonmark output are cited in What the commonmark readers wrote." - "Line totals from grep for table, hr and caption tags, plus a byte dump of one file, sit under Check a pipeless table with grep." publishedDate: 2026-10-20 dateModified: 2026-10-20 author: Bobby Huang cluster: B role: post status: published faq: - q: Can I make a Markdown table with no pipe characters? a: "Pandoc's table for st.md, a file split by spaces, is quoted under A simple table under the markdown reader." - q: How do I set column alignment in a table without pipes? a: "Three test files and the alignment pandoc wrote for each are compared in Column alignment from the dashes." - q: Why did my pipeless table turn into a line and two paragraphs? a: "Output from both commonmark settings, with the spec lines that explain the hr, is in What the commonmark readers wrote." - q: Why did my table come out as a code block? a: "What pandoc wrote for st-align.md, read four ways, is quoted in A table pushed four spaces in." related: - markdown-tables - markdown-table-multiline-cells - markdown-horizontal-rules --- A table in a Markdown file can skip pipe characters when pandoc's `markdown` reader does the converting. In that form, plain spaces split the columns and a row of dashes sits under the header. Five tiny files were converted on macOS, using pandoc at version 3.8.3, and each HTML result is quoted below. Every result here is from a single run on one machine, and the checks stopped at the HTML output. For tables built with pipes, read the [Markdown tables guide](markdown-tables.md). The [post on multiline table cells](markdown-table-multiline-cells.md) covers grid and multiline tables, along with captions on pipe tables. ## Pipeless tables and the CommonMark spec Against the CommonMark spec file (version 0.31.2), `grep -c -F 'simple_tables'` found 0 lines. A second search, `grep -ci -F 'pipe'`, also returned 0. To prove the file could match a phrase, `grep -ci -F 'thematic break'` returned 20. Pandoc calls the space-split form `simple_tables`. Asked for its extension list with `pandoc --list-extensions=markdown`, pandoc showed `+simple_tables` in this test. Filtered the same way, the commonmark list held just `-pipe_tables` (command: `pandoc --list-extensions=commonmark`). ## The five input files Running `cat st.md` printed: ```markdown Name Role -------- ------ Jane Doe Owner John Doe Editor ``` Each line opens with two spaces. The header words sit over runs of dashes, and the cells in each row are split by spaces alone. Here is how the other four files differ. `st-cap.md` holds the same four lines with no indent, then a blank line and `Table: Doe team`. `st-align.md` has new words: `Right`, `Left` and `Center` head it, and its rows hold `12`, `Jane`, `x` and `123`, `John`, `yy`. Its header and dashes lines open with four spaces, and its two rows open with eight and seven. `st-align2.md` and `st-align3.md` keep those words. In both, the header line opens with two spaces, the dashes line with none, and the rows with five and four. The two files differ in where the header words sit over their dashes. ## A simple table under the markdown reader The command: ```sh pandoc -f markdown -t html st.md ``` Pandoc wrote: ```html
Name Role
Jane Doe Owner
John Doe Editor
``` The first line became the `thead` row, and the two lines under the dashes became `tbody` rows. The space inside `Jane Doe` stayed inside one cell. Pandoc gave each `th` and `td` a `style` attribute set to `text-align: left;`. ## Add a caption line The caption file went through this command: ```sh pandoc -f markdown -t html st-cap.md ``` It gave the same rows, with one more line right after the opening tag: ```html ``` The `Table: Doe team` line turned into a `caption` element, and the text `Table:` was dropped from it. This file had no indent, and the table still came out with its `thead` and `tbody` rows. Pandoc names this caption syntax `table_captions`, and `pandoc --list-extensions=markdown` showed `+table_captions` in this test. For more on captions, see the [multiline table cells post](markdown-table-multiline-cells.md). ## Column alignment from the dashes Running `cat st-align2.md` printed: ```markdown Right Left Center ------- ------ -------- 12 Jane x 123 John yy ``` Converted with the `markdown` reader, this file got `style="text-align: right;"` on all three `th` cells and all six `td` cells. Here, the last letter of each header word lines up over the last dash of its run. To get three different values, a new file moved the header words. Running `cat st-align3.md` printed: ```markdown Right Left Center ------- ------ -------- 12 Jane x 123 John yy ``` The `markdown` reader then wrote: ```html
Doe team
Right Left Center
12 Jane x
123 John yy
``` Across `st.md`, `st-align2.md` and `st-align3.md`, the value pandoc picked matched where each header word sat over its dashes: 1. Word ends where its dashes end, starts further in: `right`. 2. Word starts where its dashes start, ends short of them: `left`. 3. Word touches neither end of its dashes: `center`. The cells in the rows took the value of their column header. No other layout was tried here. ## Turning off simple_tables This run switched the extension off: ```sh pandoc -f markdown-simple_tables -t html st.md > st-nost.html ``` The file held one paragraph, and the header, dashes and rows ran together inside it. The dash runs came back as dash characters, so the output holds non-ASCII bytes. Here is that line ASCII-normalized, with `[U+2014]` standing for each EM DASH and `[U+2013]` for the one EN DASH: ```text

Name Role [U+2014][U+2014][U+2013] [U+2014][U+2014] Jane Doe Owner John Doe Editor

``` The byte dump from `od -An -tx1 st-nost.html` showed `e2 80 94` for each U+2014 and `e2 80 93` for the U+2013. The eight hyphens under `Name` turned into two EM DASH characters and one EN DASH. The six hyphens under `Role` turned into two EM DASH characters. With `st-cap.md`, the same run added `

Table: Doe team

` as a second paragraph, so the caption line stayed as plain text. ## What the commonmark readers wrote Reading `st.md`, pandoc wrote these three lines under plain `commonmark`, and again under `commonmark+pipe_tables`: ```html

Name Role

Jane Doe Owner John Doe Editor

``` That middle line comes from the spec. A line made of at least three `-` characters, after no more than three spaces of indent, is a thematic break (lines 838 to 841), and spaces may sit between those characters (line 916). Line 1373 rules out inner spaces in a setext heading underline, so `Name Role` stayed a paragraph and pandoc wrote no heading. The [horizontal rules guide](markdown-horizontal-rules.md) covers that dashes line in more depth. The `st-cap.md` runs under those two settings added `

Table: Doe team

` after those three lines. For `st-align2.md`, each of the two settings gave: ```html

Right Left Center

 12   Jane       x
123   John      yy
``` Its rows had five and four spaces of indent. Lines 1628 to 1633 of the spec say an indented code block is made of lines indented by at least four spaces, with four spaces taken off each one. That is why ` 12` kept one space at its start. ## A table pushed four spaces in In `st-align.md`, the header and dashes lines open with four spaces, and the rows open with eight and seven. Under `markdown`, `markdown-simple_tables`, `commonmark` and `commonmark+pipe_tables` alike, pandoc wrote one identical block: ```html 
Right     Left     Center
-------   ------   --------
    12    Jane       x
   123    John      yy
``` Pandoc took out four spaces from each line and kept the rest as literal text. No `table` element came out, even with `simple_tables` on. ## Check a pipeless table with grep Work from the directory where `st.md` and the other test files live. 1. Open the source with `cat st.md`, then count the spaces ahead of the first word on each line. Two worked here, and four gave a code block. 2. Convert it: `pandoc -f markdown -t html st.md > st.html`. Then `grep -c '' st.html` printed `1`. 3. Switch readers: `pandoc -f commonmark -t html st.md > st-cm.html`. Here `grep -c '
' st-cm.html` printed `0`. A count of hr lines, `grep -c '
' st-cm.html`, printed `1`. 4. Check the caption: `pandoc -f markdown -t html st-cap.md > st-cap.html`, then `grep -c '
' st-cap.html` printed `1`. 5. Look for dash characters with the extension off: `pandoc -f markdown-simple_tables -t html st.md > st-nost.html`. After that, `LC_ALL=C grep -c '[^ -~]' st-nost.html` printed `1`, one line with a non-ASCII byte. 6. Name the bytes with `od -c st-nost.html` or `od -An -tx1 st-nost.html` and match each three-byte group to a code point. ## Where Sashmark fits Sashmark's v1, if built to plan, would let a person fix wording directly in its rendered form. Each save would run a clean Round-Trip, one more planned piece, and untouched lines would keep byte for byte what they held. A Changes View, planned as well, would point out every edit since the file was last opened for reading, and git would play no part. It is in development and has not been released. The app itself has no AI features. See the [planned features](/features), the [help pages](/help) and the [roadmap](/roadmap) for where each part stands. More at [sashmark.com](https://www.sashmark.com/).